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The latest news, analysis, and Marxist theory from The Communist, alongside reports of RCP activity.

Drug giants’ huge profits

Drug giants’ huge profits

The
Observer (17.08.08) ran a front page headline “Health chief attacks drug giants
over huge profits.” Sir Michael Rawlins hit out after the National Institute
for Clinical Excellence (NICE) was accused of ‘barbarism’ for refusing to
approve expensive kidney drugs. NICE said the drugs ‘only’ gave the patient an
extra few months of life. We wonder if they would be so insouciant if it were their
lives on the line?

“We
are told we are being mean all the time, but what nobody mentions is why the
drugs are so expensive,” Rawlins commented.

Why Socialism?

Why Socialism?

Production
is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those
able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an
“army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of
losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a
profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great
hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more
unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit
motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for
an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to
increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of
labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I
mentioned before.

Workers Virtually Destitute

Workers Virtually Destitute

£8.80 for a 39 hour week!

The ‘Guardian’ reported (30.06.08) “After a 39-hour week, one man took home
£8.80 when his monthly rent of £155 was deducted in one week. Another man
worked a 70-hour week, earning £420, but was not paid overtime and after having
£228 deducted for repayment on tools was left with £66. A third man worked a
40-hour week but was left with £13 after paying £155 for a month’s rent. As
self-employed workers they received no holiday pay.

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of Ucatt, said: "This case is the worst
we have seen. These workers were virtually destitute.

Paying tax – that’s just for little people!

Paying tax – that’s just for little people!

Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal
income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office, said about 68% of foreign
companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes.

"It’s shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing
to support our country," said
Senator Byron Dorgan.

Ethiopia: which way forward?

Ethiopia: which way forward?

As food prices
soar world-wide it was reported recently on the BBC that ‘Ethiopia has launched an urgent
appeal to international donors for more than $300m (£154m) of emergency aid’.

According the news item, ‘a
total of 4.6 million people are now thought to need food aid, because of the
drought which struck most of the country in the early part of this year. In
some parts of the country, health centres and feeding clinics are already being
overwhelmed with large numbers of severely malnourished children. Existing
stocks of food aid will cover June, but the crunch will come in July.’

How to win strikes

How to win strikes

Harry DeBoer wrote this pamphlet in 1987 to inspire
a new generation of trade union activists with the militant traditions of US
labour’s past. As a young man he worked in the Minneapolis coal yards and
became caught up and radicalised in the Minneapolis ‘teamster rebellion’ of
1934. As he makes clear, this was a model strike, and it was led by Marxists.
(See our review of ‘Teamster Rebellion’ by Farrell Dobbs, another Trotskyist
and strike leader.)

William Morris: How I Became a Socialist (extracts)

William Morris: How I Became a Socialist (extracts)

William Morris is probably known best today as a designer of wallpaper
and fabrics. This is a travesty. Morris was a revolutionary socialist,
a Marxist. Morris read Capital when it was only published in German,
and therefore unavailable to most British workers. Inspired, he joined the Democratic Federation, later called the
Social Democratic Federation, the first British Marxist organisation.
From that time on he was a tireless agitator for socialism till his
last days.

Is Barack Obama an Alternative for U.S. Workers?

Is Barack Obama an Alternative for U.S. Workers?

After years of Bush’s open-ended war on working people at home and
abroad, many on the “left” are desperate for an alternative. For many,
that alternative is Barack Obama, a Democratic Senator from Illinois. However,
far from being a “progressive” alternative, Obama is at his core a
typical representative of the bosses’ political parties.

The Invergordon Mutiny 1931

The Invergordon Mutiny 1931

In September 1931,
the sailors of the Atlantic Fleet of the British Royal Navy organised an
insurrection against the government in response to pay cuts and conditions of
employment. Known as the Invergordon Mutiny, it is one of the historical
examples of the power of class-based action in response to attacks on living
standards.

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